Encapsulated materials have been used for many years in a wide variety of commercial applications. Other uses of encapsulated materials included paper coated with capsules bearing coloring material therein which could be used as a recording medium. In addition to release of physically absorbable materials such as ink in order to form a visible image, other types of active ingredients such as odor releasing materials, and the like have been provided in this manner.
Items of this nature can increase consumer involvement in promoting products through advertisement. One of the most important things to do when doing business with consumers is to get their attention and interest in your products. With advertising promotions, the advertisement must hold the consumer's attention long enough for the consumer to be aware of the product being promoted. Because of this need to make the consumers stop and read the advertisement, companies place attention letters in advertisements to make people stop at the ad and notice the product promotion. One way of doing this is to place an advertisement which needs the consumer's participation to complete. This is known as consumer involvement.
One such type of consumer involvement item is the scratch-off game. This game can be anything which requires the consumer to stop and scratch off a covering from some part of the ad to reveal the prize or secret message. One type of scratch-off game that is very popular is the instant lottery ticket. This type of game benefits from the interest generated by consumer involvement as described above. Anything which can increase the consumer interest will increase sales of game tickets. Consumer interest can be increased by incorporating into scratch-off games a fragrance into the game piece. This can be done easily by using microencapsulated fragrances. These fragrances would be such that the scent would evoke a consumer response in accordance with the item being promoted or the content of the game. For example, the scent of Christmas trees would be incorporated into an instant lottery ticket which has a Christmas holiday theme. Another example would a cents off coupon by a coffee brand where the consumer had to scratch-off the area to determine the value of the coupon and this would release a coffee scent. The variations of game and scent combinations could be unlimited.